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Despite concerns by some Town Meeting members over editing bylaw changes presented by the Committee on Government Regulations (COGR) on the floor during the second session of the annual meeting on Thursday night, there was some lengthy debate over a number of revisions.
Review of the town’s bylaws is a process undertaken every 10 years to make changes such as grammatical or spelling edits to modernizing language such as gender pronouns and updating definitions.
COGR — acting as the Decennial Review Committee — has been reviewing 24 of Winchester’s 25 town bylaws since last fall. The only bylaw not revised was the Community Preservation Act, which was passed by Town Meeting last spring and voted and approved by voters in November 2024.
“We’re seven years late to the 10-year review,” committee member Joan Miller said, “but we did the best we could.”
COGR Co-Chair Megan Blackwell started the long night of bylaw revisions with a package of articles for Town Meeting, ranging from Articles 40 to 55.
Blackwell said even if Town Meeting voted in the negative on any of the 13, the town’s procedures and how it currently conducts business would not change. The revisions being made, she said, were mainly to clean up and clarify.
For example, in Article 40, the town seeks to officially change the day of townwide elections to Saturdays instead of Tuesdays. Blackwell said the town already does that and a no vote would not change procedure.
Only Article 51, which deals with anti-smoking regulations, was requested to be stricken and not revised by the Board of Health and Department of Health Director Jennifer Murphy because the state’s anti-smoking laws and regulations are more strict.
Town Moderator Philip Frattaroli said the group of bylaws Blackwell presented were taken up as a set instead of individually to save time on discussion, given the 22 public hearings and number of sessions taken up by town officials on the changes during meetings earlier this year.
Select Board Chair Michelle Prior said the body had met and discussed the proposed bylaw changes in multiple meetings and preferred to address each article as it came up.
“It was a mixed bag of favorable and unfavorable,” Prior said, referring to the articles. “We felt some clarifications were muddy, but it was more favorable than not.”
Voting the 13 step-by-step
Following Blackwell’s explanation of the 13 articles and how the Select Board voted, Town Meeting swung into a more thorough discussion of each one.
However, Ann Sera, of Precinct 1, said she felt “uncomfortable” with the entire process behind the bylaw review done by the Decennial Review Committee due to what she felt was a “lack of [a] public comment” period. She added because of the numerous changes, she did not want to end up editing them on the Town Meeting floor.
“We have had 22 open meetings and welcomed the public and boards to attend and we held a pre-hearing on Zoom,” Blackwell said, in answer to Sera’s concerns. “We did receive feedback and acted on it. We also posted to the [Town Meeting Members Association] online forum when we had changes so they’ve been there for a long time.”
While one member motioned for indefinite postponement of the articles, Bill Swanton from Precinct 5 said he wanted to hear the individual articles.
“[The committee] has put a lot of work into this,” John Miller, of Precinct 6, agreed. “There are really very little changes here and a lot of people are ready to vote on them. It seems pretty easy to me, there aren’t a lot of changes and they don’t seem to amount to more than a few clerical changes. I’m ready to vote.”
Town Meeting agreed, voting 125-14 to move forward with the discussion.
After a question about who decides on towing of parked vehicles and fees associated with Article 40, Town Meeting moved quickly through the various articles — but not without a technical glitch that impeded use of the clickers to vote.
“We’re going to need a new Bingo card for this one,” Frattaroli quipped, in reference to the voting system going down, as well as a series of unusual parliamentary procedures used during the evening.
Frattaroli had previously made a joke to the same Bingo card during the first session on April 28 when the projector went down for the first hour of Town Meeting.
Twelve of the 13 articles were eventually passed, with Articles 48 and 53 receiving the most discussion during the evening.
Article 48, which amended certain subsections of Chapter 11 of the bylaws dealing with “Anti-Litter,” received an unfavorable 4-1 recommendation from the Select Board.
“We had concerns with words missing and the general confusion of the language,” said Chair Michelle Prior.
While Precinct 8 member Diab Jerius questioned the specifics of the language, Select Board and Precinct 3 member Bill McGonigle said there were various questions over definitions and many other errors.
“The Select Board felt there were a lot of edits that needed to be made without getting into policies,” McGonigle said. “The Select Board would be happy if this was referred to committee.”
Jerius then moved for an indefinite postponement on the article.
“I would prefer if we moved this to a time certain with an edited version to the end of Town Meeting,” Swanton agreed. “There’s a lot of good stuff here and some weird stuff, but we could kick this to the Fall Town Meeting.”
With a voice vote too close to call, Frattaroli moved to the fixed clicker system. In a 72-70 vote, Town Meeting decided to keep the discussion going.
Another amendment quickly followed to postpone the vote to a time certain at the end of this Town Meeting, with the Select Board asked to come back with a set of edits that would address their concerns over Article 48.
The motion was voted in the affirmative.
Article 53, which would amend certain subsections of Chapter 18 – Public Shade Trees, addressed the need by the Permanent Tree Street Committee to make changes in its membership by changing from five to seven people and removing representatives from the Design Review Committee.
Prior said the Select Board voted 3-2 to recommend unfavorable action. She said this is the third time Town Meeting has been asked to tweak this specific bylaw.
“We are in favor of shade trees and public trees,” Prior said, adding there has to be a more comprehensive way of working with the bylaw.
Permanent Tree Street Committee Chair David Miller said the reason the board wanted to add more members was to form working groups to deal with the issues facing the town, such as the loss of canopy discussed on April 28 during his report. He added there are multiple people who have contacted him about joining the board.
Additionally, Miller said the Design Review Committee role on the board was mostly historical, having asked for a place when the Permanent Tree Street Committee was put together 12 years ago. He said a lot of people just don’t attend meetings, which leads to less work being done.
Miller was enthusiastic about adding new members.
Town Meeting voted to pass the article.
The prologue
Town Meeting has voted to move Article 37 to the fall, where it will hopefully be able to resolve issues members and town officials felt were too numerous to solve this spring.
COGR member Meredith Crowley said Chapter 1 is the introduction to the town’s bylaws and the committee felt it was important to meet with the town clerk, town archivist and town counsel in order to find out what issues they felt should be addressed.
For example, Crowley said the town clerk asked for the term “website” to be added to address modern technological updates. Some other language and laws, she added, were no longer relevant in the modern age.
Speaking for the Select Board, McGonigle said the body recommended unfavorable action on the article.
“This is one of the most important chapters because this sets the stage for everything else,” McGonigle said, adding there were just too many terms and proposed definitions that were inconsistent with the town charter.
McGonigle said the Select Board would be amenable to sending Article 37 to committee.
Precinct 5 member Mariano Goluboff agreed, moving to refer the article back to COGR and the Select Board and come back in the fall.
“Chapter 1 is the foundational part of the charter,” Goluboff said. “There are just so many issues to amend on the fly.”
Town Meeting voted an overwhelming yes on the measure.
End to the evening
Town Meeting will be back Monday, May 5 to pick up Article 38, after Goluboff moved to adjourn the session shortly before 10 p.m.
“It’s late and we’re making changes to how Town Meeting is organized,” he said.
The membership voted a resounding yes, but not before Frattaroli had introduced the controversial article, which deals with whether or not Winchester will continue to use Robert’s Rules of Order or switch over to Town Meeting Time.
Frattaroli said Town Meeting would work through the article by looking at each subsection individually, in a procedure called “division of the question.”
Blackwell also gave her take on what she called non-substantive changes, such as posting Town Meeting notices on the town website and removing the Human Services Committee and Committee for Equal Opportunity, both of which are inactive and have not met in years.
Changes addressing how Town Meeting organizes itself, she said, are more substantive.
Should Town Meeting decide not to pass any of the portions of Article 38, Blackwell said the town will continue moving forward with what it has now.
The entirety of Article 38 will be taken up by Town Meeting when it reconvenes on May 5 at Winchester High School, beginning at 6:30 p.m. So far, Town Meeting has completed 14 of the 18 bylaw changes.
With 39 of 56 warrant articles done, Frattaroli was hopeful Town Meeting could possibly finish up the rest of the warrant Monday night. However, the body is expected to take up the budget on that same night.
